WORLD IN BRIEF

Wednesday

Mar 13, 2019 at 6:14 AMMar 13, 2019 at 6:49 AM

PARLIAMENT

May’s Brexit

deal rejected

LONDON (TNS) — U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was rejected once again by Parliament, throwing the country deeper into political crisis and raising the prospect that the divorce will be delayed or even reversed.

May’s deal — renegotiated late on Monday night — was defeated by 391 votes to 242. That was less than the record 230-vote margin she suffered in January, but still a resounding repudiation of two years of painstaking work.

With the deal all but dead, Parliament will probably vote to postpone Brexit this week, and lawmakers — including some of May’s own Cabinet — will likely try to maneuver to force the government to rip up its Brexit plans and start again.

Members of Parliament are expected to vote Wednesday to take a chaotic no-deal option off the table. May said she’ll offer a free vote, meaning the government will not whip Conservative lawmakers to take a particular side.

But there’s a risk all they manage to do is postpone the drama for another few months. It was notable that she included a second referendum on Brexit among the choices Parliament may face in coming months.

“Voting against leaving without a deal and for an extension does not solve the problems we face,” May said. “I continue to believe that by far the best outcome is that the U.K. leaves the EU in an orderly fashion with a deal, and that the deal we have negotiated is the best and indeed the only deal available.”

May’s job, which she has clung to through one crisis after another, is now in greater peril than ever.

May herself has said that if her deal was rejected, Parliament would force the U.K. to maintain closer ties with the bloc in a betrayal of the referendum result of 2016. She’s also warned of the risk that the divorce would be stopped altogether, and her latest comments will likely boost campaigners who want the U.K.’s membership of the EU to put to another public vote.

— Bloomberg

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.